Anton Chekhov Biography Update, Age, Education, Cause of Death, Works

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short story writer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers ever. As a playwright, he created four classic plays, and his short stories are highly respected by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often named as one of the three key figures in the rise of early modern theatre. He also worked as a physician. He once said, “Medicine is my lawful wife,” and “literature is my mistress.”

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After The Seagull was poorly received in 1896, Chekhov stepped away from the theatre. However, the play was revived to great success in 1898 by Konstantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre. The theatre also produced Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. These four plays are challenging for actors and audiences because, instead of traditional action, Chekhov creates a “theatre of mood” and a “submerged life in the text.”

Age

Anton Chekhov was born on 29 January 1860 in Taganrog, Russia.

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Biography

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on 29 January 1860, the feast day of St. Anthony the Great, in Taganrog, a port city on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. His family lived on Politseyskaya (Police) Street, later renamed Chekhova Street. He was the third of six surviving children, with two older brothers, Alexander and Nikolai, and three younger siblings, Ivan, Maria, and Mikhail. His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, was the son of a former serf from Olkhovatka (Voronezh Governorate). Pavel operated a grocery store, directed the parish choir, was a devout Orthodox Christian, and was reportedly physically abusive. Some historians believe he influenced Chekhov’s depictions of hypocrisy. Chekhov’s mother, Yevgeniya (Morozova), was a talented storyteller who shared accounts of her travels across Russia with her father, a cloth merchant. Chekhov once said, “Our talents we got from our father, but our soul from our mother.”

As a child, Chekhov attended the Greek School in Taganrog, followed by the Taganrog Boys Gymnasium, now known as the Chekhov Gymnasium. At fifteen, he repeated a year after failing an Ancient Greek exam. He also sang at the Greek Orthodox monastery in Taganrog and in his father’s choirs.

Death

In May 1903, Chekhov visited Moscow, where the well-known lawyer Vasily Maklakov visited him almost every day and signed his will. By May 1904, Chekhov was seriously ill with tuberculosis. Mikhail Chekhov remembered, “everyone who saw him secretly thought the end was not far off, but the nearer he was to the end, the less he seemed to realise it.” On 3 June, Chekhov and Olga traveled to Badenweiler, a spa town in Germany’s Black Forest. From there, he wrote cheerful letters to his sister Masha, describing the food and scenery, and telling her and his mother that he was improving. In his last letter, he complained about how German women dressed. Chekhov died on 15 July 1904 at age 44 after a long struggle with tuberculosis, the same illness that had killed his brother.

Chekhov’s death has become one of “the great set pieces of literary history”, retold, embroidered, and fictionalized many times since, notably in the 1987 short story “Errand” by Raymond Carver. In 1908, Olga wrote this account of her husband’s last moments:

Chekhov’s body was transported to Moscow in a refrigerated railway car originally intended for oysters, which offended Gorky. Among the thousands of mourners, some mistakenly followed the funeral procession of General Keller, which was accompanied by a military band. Chekhov was buried next to his father at Novodevichy Cemetery.